


Blood Debt

by FallenAscendant



Category: Aquaman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Death, F/M, Gore, I'm bad at tags, Nothing happy happens here, Pre-New 52, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-11 23:41:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17456501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallenAscendant/pseuds/FallenAscendant
Summary: For every hero dedicated to justice there is a villain committed to their fall.





	Blood Debt

**Author's Note:**

> This looks like I'm jumping on the Aquaman hype train but I've been a big fan since the Brightest Day story. Even though I've been a supporter of the New 52 and all the rest, I've often wondered where the various stories would have gone if things had been allowed to continue. The good and the bad. There are lots of stories of Batman being pushed to the limit (Metal) and superman as well (Injustice) but here we get a look at a worse case scenario for pre-52 Aquaman.
> 
> Enjoy...or don't?

"Mera!”

Arthur Curry looked into the wide eyes of the woman he held. Those eyes were unseeing though. Unmoving. What had once danced behind them was gone. For his heart to accept what his head already knew was too much to be asked of Arthur then. Slowly, almost inevitably, his eyes drifted down Mera’s body, forced to once more take stock of her wounds. Numerous cuts, large and small, shallow and deep, were struck through her garments. One wound in particular drew Arthur’s attention as it continued to mockingly leak blood through the iron grasp his left hand held on it. Arthur watched as the blood drifted off into the ocean waters surrounding them. The waters of the world, which Arthur as Aquaman called his home, were carrying away his wife’s essence. Fresh tears came to Arthur at the sight but he was soon distracted as a new shape floated into his view. It took a moment for him to realize it was a person. As his tears were washed away he found he was looking at Jackson Hyde – Aqualad – someone he had promised to guide and protect. Jackson continued to float past up to his waist where his body abruptly ended. The rest of him was somewhere else. Arthur tears his eyes away from the grotesque scene and returns to another.

The cost of the day was so great…but if Mera were still… 

“Mera, please!” 

“ **She’s dead, Aquaman.** ” 

That voice, so familiar. Of course. It couldn’t have been anyone else. It was always going to be him. 

Rage erupted within Arthur but he had time for nothing else before being struck in the side by an energy blast. He lost his grip on Mera. They were separated. Cartwheeling through the water, his arms flailed urgently to find the woman he so desperately needed to believe could be saved. After a moment he was able to right himself and that was when Arthur saw Mera drifting away, further and further into the dark abyss. Not so fast, though, to spare him the sight of seeing the fatal wound, the one Arthur had stubbornly struggled to hold closed, split open. The murderer had driven their blade from sternum to stomach. Fleshy bits leaked out of the opening. Mera, Princess of Xebel, Queen of Atlantis, love of his life, had been gutted – like a fish. 

He stared at the sight in shock for what felt like an eternity. The image was forever seared into his mind. 

The grief Arthur felt was overwhelming and matched only by the anger growing alongside it. It was only by kindling that anger could Arthur pull his gaze away from his wife – like letting go of her forever – and focus on something else. If he couldn’t have Mera back then he would get the next best thing. He wanted – no, he needed revenge for what had been done to those closest to him. Arthur scanned the murky waters until he spotted the tell-tale golden glow. Like being shot out of a cannon, Aquaman surged to the sight, smashing into the ocean floor with enough force to shatter stone. In his hands he now held the familiar weight of his golden trident. He looked at its three pointed prongs and the image of what he wanted to do with it came unbidden. A sight of a man skewered on the ends. 

He didn’t fight the urge. 

As the mud and debris dissipated, Arthur began looking for the one responsible for such heinous crimes. He would find his wife’s murderer and this time…there would be a final reckoning. 

“Manta! Where are you?” Arthur screamed into the depths. 

“ **Here.** ” 

Before Arthur could react he was being punched in the back by another energy blast. This one sent him up and up until he broke through the surface of the water. He was propelled into the air before finally falling and landing hard on the rocky shore. Struggling to breath, Arthur lifted himself up on shaky limbs. There was a storm raging overhead sending torrential rains to the earth. Any other day and Arthur would have felt the feel of rain on his skin as comforting. This was not like any other day. 

He lifted his head to stare at the grassy lane close to the water. Again his eyes moved with a mind of their own and he winced at the sight. Lorena Marquez – Aquagirl – lay in the grass, which was coated her blood. She was on her stomach but facing away from Arthur. It didn’t help. She had been the first one he found and he had seen how he failed her. A savage gash revealed how her throat had been slashed and then Aquagirl was left alone to crawl across the grass as her blood spilled out until finally she could move no more. The sight was a reminder that Arthur did not fight to avenge Mera only. Indeed, the list of victims was greater than a single day’s events. 

Arthur surged to his feet and spun around, staring intently at the churning waters of Amnesty Bay. If he looked to his right Arthur would see the place he called home on land. The lighthouse his father had lived in and passed on to Arthur. But looking would have brought more wounds, more pain. He would see how the top half of the lighthouse was gone. The light itself, which had shone as a beacon for many years, lay shattered on the rocks. The dock, upon which Arthur’s father, Thomas, had walked every morning, now burned. Looking would have brought more pain and Arthur already had all he could stand. He kept his eyes fixed on the waters. 

Arthur didn’t have to wait long before a large, oval, helmet rose from the water. Two crimson eyes looked back at him. Step by step, appearing to be in no great hurry, a man Aquaman had fought countless times revealed himself until he stood on a jutting rock a dozen meters away. Arthur glared at those uncaring eyes. He couldn’t see the face of the man beneath but he didn’t need to. There would be no smile, no glee and no satisfaction. The only thing that could make Black Manta happy was the death of Aquaman.

“ **They’re all dead, Aquaman,** ” declared Black Manta. His tone wasn’t taunting, merely stating a fact meant to hurt like striking flesh with a blunt object. That was how Manta operated, with blunt words and leaving all the cutting for his knives; like the long-knife he spun in one hand. Arthur’s grip on his trident tightened painfully. 

“They were kids. One of them was your son!”

“ **Maybe if you weren’t with your friends in the Justice League, you could have saved them.** ” 

“Why?” asked Arthur through clenched teeth. 

“ **We’ll never know now,** ” continued Manta as though Arthur hadn’t spoken. 

“Why have you done this?” demanded Arthur again, taking a step closer and lifting his trident threateningly. 

“ **Why?** ” Manta repeated the question and let it hang in the air between them for agonizing moments, forcing Arthur to wait. 

“ **For my father. Today I claim the blood debt owed me.** ” In one swift motion, Manta drew a second long-knife and pointed it at Arthur. 

“ **You, Aquaman, killed my father.** ” 

The condemnation, one he had heard from Manta many times before, felt hollow and…and…unfair to Arthur’s ears. After everything Black Manta had done to him, all the unspeakable crimes. A floodgate was opened within Arthur, releasing years hate and sorrow that had been buried so that the hero Aquaman could exist. 

It was becoming clear that hero was gone. 

Arthur said the first thing that mattered. 

“You killed my son!” 

“ **Yes, I did.** ” 

There was no holding back the tsunami anymore. With a roar, Aquaman leapt high into the air before descending towards his hated enemy, trident leading the charge. Black Manta stood his ground with knives ready but greeted the attack with another energy blast from his helmet’s bulbous eyes. The beam slammed into Arthur but he kept coming. Everything else was unimportant. The rain on his skin, the pounding in his ears, the pain in his chest – it was all nothing. Only one thing mattered. 

_Mera!_  

All he could see was red.

All he could see was blood.

**Author's Note:**

> Came up with the idea for this years ago but never went anywhere with it. Originally imagined it as a comic and I think it would have worked better that way but this isn't bad, right? Considered putting a big fight in this but went with short and sweet. Maybe later I'll write that fight. Thoughts?
> 
> Cheers.


End file.
